In an extended interview, award-winning journalist and activist Allan Nairn looks back over the Obama administration’s foreign policy and national security decisions over the last twelve months. "I think Obama should be remembered as a great man because of the blow he struck against white racism," Nairn says. "But once he became president...Obama became a murderer and a terrorist, because the US has a machine that spans...

A federal judge in Washington, DC has thrown out all charges against the five Blackwater operatives involved in the 2007 Nisoor Square massacre that killed seventeen Iraqi civilians. Judge Ricardo Urbina handed down his ruling late in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve. Urbina accused the Justice Department of building its case on sworn statements that the guards had given under a promise of immunity. We speak with attorney Scott Horton....

In Baghdad, the death toll from Sunday’s synchronized suicide car bombings has risen to 155. More than 500 people were also injured. It was the deadliest bombing in Iraq in two years. The blasts targeted the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Works and the Baghdad provincial government. Dozens of civil servants were among the dead. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited the site of the bombings and blamed al-Qaeda and...

The private military contractor Triple Canopy is at the center of a new controversy in Iraq. A twenty-five-year-old employee named Adam Hermanson died ten days ago after apparently being electrocuted while taking a shower in his living quarters at Triple Canopy’s base inside the Green Zone in Baghdad. Hermanson’s family is alleging Triple Canopy misled them about how he died, perhaps to cover up faulty electrical wiring at the...

War veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan came to Capitol Hill this month to testify before Congress and give an eyewitness account about the horrors of war. Like the Winter Soldier hearings in March 2008, when more than 200 service members gathered for four days in Silver Spring, Maryland to give their eyewitness accounts of the injustices occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, "Winter Soldier on the Hill" was designed to drive home the...

A US soldier who went absent without leave a year and a half ago to avoid returning to Iraq has applied for asylum in Germany. Specialist Andre Shepherd served in Iraq between September 2004 and February 2005 as an Apache helicopter mechanic. When his unit was called up to return to Iraq in early 2007, he went AWOL to avoid redeployment, calling the war "illegal." He lived underground in Germany for a year and a half before applying...

On Monday, IVAW delivered a letter to Senator Barack Obama’s DNC campaign headquarters asking that he endorse the organization’s three main points: the immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq, full and adequate healthcare and benefits to all returning service members and veterans, and reparations made to the Iraqi people for the destruction caused by the US war and occupation. This weekend here in Denver, Amy Goodman...

Sergeant Matthis Chiroux served in the Army for five years, with tours in Afghanistan, Japan, Germany and the Philippines. Last month, Chiroux announced he would not deploy to Iraq. On Sunday, Father’s Day, the deadline for him to report for active duty expired. [includes rush transcript]

War veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan came to Capitol Hill this month to testify before Congress and give an eyewitness account about the horrors of war. Like the Winter Soldier hearings in March, when more than 200 service members gathered for four days in Silver Spring, Maryland to give their eyewitness accounts of the injustices occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan, "Winter Soldier on the Hill" was designed to drive home the human...

As the US occupation of Iraq enters its sixth year, we take a look at a new documentary that captures the struggles of one of the tens of thousands of US troops injured in the war. Body of War is directed by filmmaker Ellen Spiro and veteran broadcaster Phil Donahue. The film tells the story of Iraq war veteran Tomas Young. On April 4, 2004, his fifth day in Iraq, Young’s unit came under fire in Baghdad. He was left paralyzed, never to...